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On the contrary: ad revenue collapses and willingness to pay online is low. That is why new payment models are needed. Direct media funding also remains indispensable, as the Center for Research for the Public and Society (FÖG) at the University of Zurich shows in its “Quality of Media 2020” yearbook published on Monday.
The center has been investigating the development of Swiss media every year since 2010. Since then, no other event has had such a strong impact on Swiss media as the Covid 19 pandemic, according to the report.
Trust in traditional media
The results show that people increasingly turn to the media in times of crisis. The need for secure data and reliable information is increasing. People trusted traditional media regardless of their age. 44 percent of those surveyed said they trust this medium. On social media it was only 19 percent.
A study previously published by the FÖG also found a relatively high quality of pandemic reports. However, this cannot compensate for the drop in ad revenue with the increase in readership. On the contrary: the pandemic has aggravated the precarious financial situation of information journalism for years.
The biggest grumpy newsgroup
Younger people also consumed more news during the pandemic, but only for a short time. Young people with below average news consumption now make up the largest user group at 37 percent.
The FÖG examined this phenomenon more closely. It turned out that this group is interested in mobilizing issues such as climate strikes or #Metoo, if the information matches their own identity or their own environment.
You prefer messages that are attractive, easy to understand, and easy to incorporate into everyday life. Those who abstain from receiving news only want to pay for this if journalistic content from different media is offered on a flat-rate platform.
Less classification
Another finding from the report is that the media’s reliance on experts is increasing during the Corona crisis. That’s not surprising, because only 2.1 percent of all media contributions concern science. This proportion has been stable for the last five years.
The media rating performance plummeted dramatically. In 2019, 14 percent of contributions were used for ranking, in 2015 it was 36 percent.
As in previous years, there was also a decline in diversity in 2019. The media covered an increasingly narrow spectrum of topics and geographic areas.
Diversity also declined within the media as more and more people shared the same posts. The proportion of these posts shared increased from 10 to 21 percent between 2017 and 2019. This was particularly pronounced in national policy briefs. There, the share of shared contributions increased from 21 percent in 2017 to 41 percent in 2019.
Little willingness to pay
In the face of falling advertising revenue, new payment systems are gaining importance. However, only 13 percent of the population wanted to pay for news online in 2020, compared to 10 percent in 2016. At 19 percent, young women between the ages of 18 and 24 were the most willing to turn off.
According to FÖG, this creates hope that a generation willing to pay will grow up. New payment models that meet the needs of the younger generation, such as “Spotify for Journalism,” could also add something.
